The emergence of the “Outskirts of Budapest” as a new administrative district through food supply 1917–1919
During the World War I the food supply became one of the main and most significant public affairs, especially in urban milieus. In Hungary, the significant decrease of agricultural production forced the government to gradually establish the systems of public provisioning. At the same time, in the urban and industrial areas the distribution of food and the shortage of goods became a serious problem, especially in industrial localities around Budapest, where social protest was increasingly prevalent. In order to cope with this challenge, by the end of the war, a new administrative district the so-called “Outskirts of Budapest” was organised within the system of food supply, and from this point of view, the concept of Greater Budapest (the integrating of the capital and its surroundings in a unified administrative district) was realized under the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. The paper argues with the example of local cases, that the wartime changes within rationing and public provisioning significantly affected the administrative setup of post-WWI Hungary.